Sophie Charara: Memteq S1 Review

Sophie Charara: Memteq S1 -

Another Gear 2-alike, bringing back er, interesting memories, the S1 paired pretty easily to my Android phone first time round so I thought it was all go. After this initial flurry of optimism, though I didn't have as much luck, sadly the S1 (as my phone is naming it) is very unreliable. One time this was because Bluetooth visibility had been turned off in settings for some reason, but even when this was sorted we had some problems.
It's chunky, pretty uncomfortable but not to the point that you can't wear it, the single power button works okay and at least charging is easy, and fairly quick, via Micro USB. You might be interested in the camera, which shoots still and videos. Don't be, it's terrible and - probably due to connectivity issues - our 'footage' didn't save to either the watch or our smartphone.
One tap on the watch face brings up a few more - none are particularly pretty - or swipe to get the Android-style screen. Touch capability just about works and you can swipe through small, Android style icons and swiping down from the main screen brings up notifications. Of course, you probably won't have any as the Bluetooth connection is so flaky. Onscreen keyboards abound and every app seems to need to be started and stopped, like the sleep monitor. One thing that did work was the music controls for your smartphone's music app. That's something, I suppose.
Overall, as a UI it's kind of useless for a smartwatch screen. The viewing angles on the low-res square display are pretty terrible, too, so it's not so easy to glance at. The colours are fairly bright though. As for battery life, we went from 100% to 50% in a matter of a few hours and didn't get more than a day.
If the Bluetooth connection had just been reliable, we'd say there's enough here if you only care about function and not about style or intuitive controls. But it's basically Gear 2 inspired tat.